The Historians' History of the World 01 [Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia]

Statue of a Scribe (Fifth Dynasty)

(Now in the Louvre)

There is yet another form of literary production that is abundantly represented among the papyrus documents. This is the religious work known as the Book of the Dead, a book that was substantially the Bible of the Egyptians, numerous copies of which in whole or in part are still in existence. An additional interest attaches to many copies of the Book of the Dead in the fact that pictures are introduced to illustrate the narrative. One is prone to think of book illustration as a relatively modern art; but in point of fact, as these documents prove, it is an art that was practised by the ancient Egyptians more than two thousand years before the Christian era.

From a purely literary standpoint, the most important remains preserved on papyrus are the various more or less perfect copies of romances and of poems. The romances are somewhat of the character of what we should call fairy tales, though elements of realism are not lacking in some of them; and the poems include love songs and other lyrics. It is extremely difficult to judge the artistic merits of productions in so alien a tongue, and it has been noted by Egyptologists that certain recitals were apparently very popular in Egypt, the merits of which are lost upon the modern interpreter, because even the greatest of modern students can hardly claim a degree of proficiency in the language that suffices for the appreciation of the niceties of usage. There are certain of the tales and poems, however, which in point of conception, thought, and construction must be admitted to have conspicuous merit, even when judged by modern standards.

As soon as the tales of ancient Egypt had been recovered in sufficient number to allow some idea of its popular literature, it was seen that stories of travel and adventure formed a considerable portion. But for a long time no tale of the sea came to light. In fact, it seemed doubtful that such a one existed. The Greek and Latin writings constantly reiterate the statement that the Egyptians regarded the sea as impure, and that none would venture on it of his own will, and upon this authority modern investigators had a well-formed theory that Egypt never had a navy or native sailors.

To them Queen Hatshepsu’s voyages of exploration and the naval victories of Ramses III were the deeds of hired Phœnicians. But the discovery of a tale at St. Petersburg—a tale which takes us far back to the XIIth Dynasty, before any Phœnicians had yet appeared on the shores of the Mediterranean, or Egypt had any thought of Syrian conquest—tends to upset these old ideas, and lead us to the belief that the sailors whom Pharaoh sent for the perfumes and goods of Arabia were native born Egyptians.

The tale of The Castaway was discovered in the Imperial Hermitage Museum at St. Petersburg by M. Golenischeff in 1880. No one knows where the papyrus was found, or how it got in Russia, or even came to be in the Hermitage Museum. It has taken its place as a classic of the XIIth Dynasty, as that of the Two Brothers is of the XIXth.

On reading it, one immediately thinks of Sindbad the Sailor, except that the serpents it was Sindbad’s fortune to meet were far from being the amiable creatures described by the Egyptian sailor. There is, indeed, no very good reason to consider the famous tale of the Thousand and One Nights as a modern version of the Egyptian narrative. The sailors’ love for the recital of marvellous adventure is too natural, too far-spread, for us to fasten the one upon the other.

The tale of The Castaway seems clearly to be a theological idea dressed up in romance form. The mysterious island is the Isle of the Double, i.e. the home of dead souls, and the serpent is its guardian. The voyage describes the long journey to the other world—that trip on the mysterious western sea, and the final reaching of the home of the soul. The basic conception of the whole thing is typically Egyptian. Perhaps our estimate of Egyptian literature cannot be completed better than by the presentation of the actual text of this romance. Our version is from G. Maspero’s rendering of M. Golenischeff’s translation of the original papyrus in the Imperial Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.a